Question

Jerry loved spending time with his grandmother when he was a kid. She was one of the few adults who

hugged him and told him how much she enjoyed his company. When he visited, she let him help her

bake cookies and they would talk in front of the fire while they ate the cookies and drank hot chocolate.

As an adult in a high stress profession, Jerry goes to the candle store to buy sugar cookie candles

because he says they help him relax after a difficult day.

What is the unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 1

Classical Conditioning is a type of associative learning. A stimulus is associated with a response. There are four major elements of classical conditioning. An Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS), is a stimulus which produces a response without any kind of prior learning. An Unconditioned Response (USR), is an automatic response which is unlearned and is elicited on presentation of unconditioned stimulus. Conditioned Stimulus (CS) in classical conditioning is previously a neutral stimulus that eventually elicits the Conditioned Response(CR) after being paired with the Unconditioned Stimulus (US).

In the above example, Jerry loved spending time with his grandmother and they together baked cookies. He thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with her eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate. It was some great time spent in leisure chilling. As an adult, he goes and buy a sugar cookie candle, because what was earlier a neutral stimulus, it now elicits a response. The smell of a sugar cookie makes Jerry associate the good times spent with his grandma which relaxes him.

The unconditioned stimulus is the smell of sugar cookie.